Buntingford

Buntingford does not appear in the Doomsday Book and is first recorded in
1185 as Buntas Ford, and in the ownership of the Knights Templar. Sited on
the cross-roads of the Roman road of Ermine Street (the A 10) and the road from
the Pelhams to Baldock and was granted a charter to hold a market in 1253.
The town centre has several 15th century buildings.

As well as being on the Old North Road, Buntingford was also on the London to
Cambridge coach road, although an alternative coach road, now the B1368, ran a
little to the east through the villages of Hare Street & Barkway. Some
former coaching inns grace these two otherwise small villages. The first
turnpike act, that for a stretch of the Old North Road between Ware and
Buntingford was passed in 1662. The George and Dragon Inn was the meeting place
of the Trustees of the Wadesmill Turnpike Trust, and also of the local
Justices.

A popular local story tells that Samuel Pepys recorded, in 1663, that he and
his wife stayed at the George Inn (or perhaps the Bell), where she became ill
after drinking cold beer. I wonder if she should have stuck to warm beer.
Now Buntingford is home to Banfield Ales and the micro Buntingford
Brewery Company Try this link
too.

The town clock is a rare example of a 16th century turret clock with just one
hand. There's another old one-handed clock on the church at Conningsby in
Lincolnshire.

Excavations at Thorley uncovered a multi-period landscape with rich
prehistoric and Roman remains, including a Late Bronze Age farmstead and Late
Iron Age/early Romano-British mortuary enclosure with cremations and
inhumations.